Fennelly J. of the Supreme Court would have allowed appeals by two families challenging decisions to deport their parents after asylum applications were transferred to the United Kingdom. In a judgment delivered on 23 January 2003, he concluded that the Minister had not given sufficiently powerful reasons to outweigh the constitutional rights of the Irish-born children. He did not propose an order, and the judgment excerpt does not state the Supreme Court’s final disposition.
The appeals concerned the Lobe family, of Czech Roma origin, and the Osayande family, Nigerian nationals. Each family had previously sought asylum in the UK. The Irish authorities treated the UK as responsible under the Dublin Convention, and deportation orders followed. Kevin Lobe and Osaze Joshua Osayande were born in Ireland while the families were in the State. The Minister confirmed the deportation decisions after considering representations about the children’s citizenship and family rights.
The High Court dismissed the families’ judicial review applications. It considered the earlier Supreme Court decision in *Fajujonu* distinguishable, including because the families there had spent longer in Ireland. The families appealed on constitutional grounds. The Supreme Court appeal did not concern their separate challenges to the implementation of the Dublin Convention, which had been rejected without appeal.
Fennelly J. treated the children’s rights as the central issue. He said the Minister accepted that each child was an Irish citizen with a right to reside in the State, and that the parents could choose Irish residence on the child’s behalf. He rejected the argument that those rights depended on the parents’ length of residence or on how many Irish-born children were in the family. In his view, *Fajujonu* could not meaningfully be distinguished on either basis.
The Minister relied on the short period each family had been in Ireland, the Dublin Convention, and the need to protect the integrity of the asylum and immigration systems. In the Lobe case, the Minister also cited the family’s ability to adapt to life in the UK and Czech Republic. Fennelly J. concluded that the general appeal to system integrity was abstract and did not explain why deporting these families was necessary. He also said the Dublin Convention allowed Ireland to examine the asylum applications itself, so applying the Convention did not provide a sufficiently powerful reason for deportation.
Fennelly J. said the constitutional standard required compelling reasons to justify interference with the children’s family rights. He would have allowed the appeals, but expressly left the formal order unproposed. The source supplied here gives only Fennelly J.’s judgment and does not establish the Court’s ultimate order.